Throughout
Korea’s tea growing region there are hundred perhaps thousands of individual
artisan tea producers with very small farms, picking and processing their own
tea by hand in the same way that their ancestors did many years ago. Almost all use wild or semi-wild bushes
that are organically grown. Most
limit their production to ujeon, sejak and sometimes jungjak, far fewer Korean producers make
hwangcha or balhyocha, and very few make hongcha, even fewer make ttokcha or matcha
especially for commercial purposes.
For
the most part these small producers never get known outside of their personal
group of friends or home villages.
Many produce tea simply for their own consumption and to give to
friends. Occasionally a tea is so
good it is shared with a passing monk or nun who tells his or her friends
and the word slowly gets out. One
day a nun who knows Shin In-suk told her about a delicious hwangcha
she had in Jiri-san. Jiri-san, the 'holy mountain of Korean tea' has many villages each with their own fine artisan tea producers. The nun explained to Shin In-suk
that the producer, Jeong Jae Yeun, makes her hwangcha before Buddha’s birthday
and dedicates her entire tea production to hwangcha.
That
the tea is made before Buddha’s Birthday is extremely important to the production
of the best hwangcha. 1 Tea made
before Buddha’s Birthday is made of fresh ‘energetic’ young leaves that thus
contain the most qi. The
difference in taste is remarkable explained the teaware artist Park Jong Il, Shin In-suk’s husband.
But
who does that? Most other hwangcha
producers make their green tea first.
That puts their hwangcha production after Buddha’s Birthday and because
it is made from older leaves the tea has less qi.
We
have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Jeong Jae Yeun but hope to do that on Tea Tour Korea 2013.
This
is what we know about Jeong Jae Yeun. In her
mid-60’s Jeong Jae Yeun, who lives near Sancheon has dedicate most of her life
to tea and produces only hwangcha, from organically grown wild and semi-wild
bushes. We also know her tea
becomes highly recommended by the nun who told Shin In-suk and it also
comes highly recommended by both Shin In-suk and her husband Park Jong Il. If you have ever visited Park Jong Il
most likely you have tasted Jeong Jae Yeun’s hwangcha. On Park Jong Il’s recent trip to China
he took this tea and tells me it received great reviews.
nice information about Korean tea.I wanna test Hwangcha tea .
ReplyDeleteThis tea is truly worth testing. Contact me and I'll try to work something out for you.
DeleteI was lucky enough to buy a bag of this tea from Arthur, and have tried it several times. I'm mostly a Chinese tea drinker, so I don't have any basis on which to compare it to other hwangcha, but I've found it to be a remarkable and enjoyable tea. Just looking at the dry leaves one can tell that it's a very carefully prepared tea: it consists exclusively of very fine leaves and buds with tender stems, to such an extent that the dry tea has an unusual appearance of hair or straw, and can actually be difficult to tease apart. One can't help but think how much labor goes into harvesting a given weight of it; knowing Arthur's price for the tea it is apparent that the production of it must largely be a labor of love.
ReplyDeleteThe taste of the tea is similarly unusual in my experience. Its aromas mostly seem to be sweet, floral fragrances that I usually associate with honey, and maybe some faint spice aromas. The flavor and mouthfeel, though, are really remarkable to me: it is intensely sweet, with a cooling sensation and extremely soft, light tannins. In some ways, the tea seems like a combination of the aromas of a delicate Chinese-style black tea with the flavors of a white or green tea. My first thought after tasting it was that it would make sense that such a tea would come from a mostly green-tea-drinking area, although I suspect the unusually early harvest time makes this tea even sweeter and more like a green tea than hwangcha that is harvested later. In any case, my opinion is that this tea is a great-tasting, easily brewed and different (in a very pleasant, educational way)from most of the teas available even from specialty companies. I'd highly recommend snagging some from Arthur if you can.
Thanks Procius for this extensive insightful comment. I'm glad that you like this tea as much as I do. On Tea Tour Korea 2013 we were fortunate to be able to visit Jeong Jae Yeun. She is a humble woman totally dedicated to this tea - her tea. We will do a post on her and the other artisan tea producers and tea ware artists we visited. But it may take all year to feature each of them.
ReplyDeleteKorea's tea leaves came in about 10 days late this year making our arrival time at the beginning rather than at the end of her harvest. But we were able to get a little more of her tea that may last until our shipment arrives. However, I'm beginning to get re-orders already.